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Expectations high for new emergency department
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| By: ADAM NORTHAM, DAILY LEADER Staff Writer |
May 14, 2009 |
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The sprawling new emergency department at King's Daughters Medical Center officially opened and received its first patient at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday after hospital staff worked through the pre-dawn hours to fill the department with supplies and equipment.
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KDMC Director of Nursing Merlene Myrick said the doctors and nurses working in emergency medicine have long awaited the spacious department's opening and are eager to use its high-tech utilities. The ED has been operating in a pair of modular buildings for one year, dealing with cramped workspaces while the new facility was under construction.
"We've been going, 'Oh my gosh, how long can we take it in these modular buildings?'" Myrick said. "(The new ED) won't be one of those things where you have to wait for one room to open before you put another (patient) in the back. The availability and size of it will make a tremendous difference - a tremendous difference."
The new ED features 19 specialized rooms, each set up with the necessary tools and medicine to treat specific types of emergencies.
Of the 19 rooms, there are four general exam rooms; three fast track rooms, built to expedite treatment of minor emergencies; two trauma bays and two cardiac rooms, all four of which were built spaciously to allow several doctors, nurses and machines to gather bedside; two OB-GYN rooms; and one room each dedicated to pediatrics, optometry, orthopedics, lacerations, otolaryngology and a quiet room.
Myrick pointed out that each room could be used for any kind of care if necessary.
"It will help the nurses where they don't have to run around so much," she said of the specialized rooms. "The supplies will be where they need them. How much we have to run around makes a big 'ole difference in how fast you get treated. The flow of the ED, I foresee, will be better."
The bigger space requires more manpower, and Myrick said two nurses laid off during KDMC's downsizing in December have been rehired to help staff the new ED.
ED/EMS Manager Terry Singleton said the new ED would house an extension of the hospital's radiology department, and the presence of a dedicated X-ray machine and CT scanner would likely bring the biggest benefit of all the department's new features.
"It's going to be spectacular," he said. "Everything is there for us. The flow will be 100 percent better."
Singleton said the presence of radiology in the new ED would make patient care much quicker, as patients will no longer have to be transported out of the ED and across the hospital. He said X-rays taken in the new ED would be available for doctors and nurses within six seconds.
"We have high expectations," Singleton said.
KDMC Chief Executive Officer Alvin Hoover said a new ED was identified as one of the hospital's primary needs years ago when the construction plans were formulated. He said years of growing volume necessitated a change from the hospital's existing ED, which was built in the 1960s.
"The ED and the ICU were right at the top of the list of things that were high visibility and high utilization - we needed those areas to be fixed first," Hoover said. "Our community deserves a new ED, where they can get up-to-date, efficient, compassionate care."
Hoover said construction crews and hospital staff have spent the last month putting finishing touches on the new ED, which opened approximately one month later than the predicted late-March date. He said the move was delayed because the hospital didn't want to admit patients and then have to do further work on the building.
"When you're moved in and you're taking care of people, you can't say, 'We're gonna come back and shut this down,'" Hoover said. "You have to get it right the first time."
The opening of the new department completes the biggest portion of the hospital's multi-year, $12 million expansion and renovation project, a job that began in early 2007 and has seen the hospital rapidly modernized. During the project, the hospital has thus far added a state-of-the-art intensive care unit, added post surgical beds to the second floor and, now, completed its high-tech emergency department.
KDMC Chief Development Officer Johnny Rainer said the hospital would next begin room-by-room renovations. Upgrades to the labor and delivery area have already begun, he said, and patient rooms on the second and third floor would be done one at a time until the entire hospital is like new.
"We will have a hospital that's going to be upgraded and brought into the 21st century," Rainer said.
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©The Daily Leader 2009
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